English - Support to Participatory Constitution Building in Nepal ...

The post-conflict Trojan horseFurther, wrong-doer females seem to be less acquainted with criminalculture and possession of criminal skills in comparison to their malecounterparts.7.3 Age groupAge is the next factor largely shaping the magnitude and profundity ofcrime. 23 Occasionally, we find massive involvement of youths in criminalactivities. Interrelating demographic factors with the occurrence ofconflict, Staveteig (2005) states that the risk of youth involvement incriminal activities is shaped by the degree of alienation, frustration, andmarginalisation they suffer. But the rest of the age groups are also foundto be engaged in such deeds differently. The sorts of crime differ from oneto another age-group. The wider variance there is of age group, the largervarieties there are in criminal patterns.7.4 EconomyUnambiguous, economy plays eminent role in crime occurrences. Thepost-conflict economic woes have ridden Nepal much. With gloomy signs,The World Bank (2009) has projected less than 4 per cent of economicgrowth in the year 2010 for Nepal. Owning some remarkable financialsuccesses in urban settings, the country still features a broadening gapbetween the poor and the privileged ones.In city settings, lack of money is usually defined in terms of a lack ofaccess to different needs like productive employment, basic services andresources of the urban economy, effective and managed representationplus security and justice (Zaidi 1998). Key is that poverty reflects theinability of an individual, household or community to satisfy minimumneeds. Frustration from job-market, urban insecurity and abject povertyfind room to play in every corner of civic dwellings due to the post-conflictstagnation. Thus, the urban poor resort to criminal actions for eking aliving. This factor constitutes even worse situation resulting in frequentcrimes in cities. But such an issue either does not get, or gets marginalattention from media, if published/transmitted. On the other side of thecoin, the phenomenal rise of the urban poverty is spiraling up annually.Whereas, in contrast to it, the priority of development institutions areeither misplaced or mismatched (Perkins 2005).23Based on pers. comm. of Safal Ghimire with Mr. Keshav Adhikari, the lecturer of population studies atTribhuwan University, Kirtipur on 20 February 2008.226